Brian Lawton is well- connected with what goes on in the NHL, having been a player, the general manager of the Tampa Bay Lightning who left a good nucleus of players when he got fired, and as an analyst for Rogers Communications, which owns the NHL Network.

Star Tribune columnist Chip Scoggins wrote a column the other day about the great ownership that Craig Leipold provides for the Wild.

Lawton, a close friend, and others familiar with the Wild agreed with Scoggins and believe Leipold might be the best owner in the NHL when it comes to treating his employees in a first-class manner and providing money for GM Chuck Fletcher to put a good club on the ice.

“Leadership starts at the top, and Craig Leipold has really been a breath of fresh air for the Wild,” Lawton said. “He has led right from Day One and obviously signing [Ryan] Suter and Zach Parise, when you make a signing like that, the owner leads the charge.”

Lawton was asked if he thought Leipold is the best owner the state has seen.

“We certainly haven’t had a lot [of different owners] on the hockey side in 30, 40 years. Bob Naegele was a tremendous owner but had a different philosophy. Before that the Gunds were good owners [of the North Stars], but nobody has been willing to spend the way that Craig Leipold has to improve this team and make this team a playoff team.”

Lawton also said it wasn’t just the big signings of Parise and Suter that stuck out, but the Wild’s ability to make smaller moves as well to improve the club.

“Other than [Parise and Suter], it has just been the ability to go out and get free agents like a Matt Cooke, to acquire guys at the trade deadline like Matt Moulson, but really in a salary cap world, it has been his commitment to spend to the maximum amount, that’s what the Minnesota Wild have been doing under Craig Leipold,” said Lawton, who also is a booster of Fletcher.

“… Minnesota is a midmarket [team] in the NHL, a midtier market, and you don’t see a lot of those midtier teams spending the maximum amount. Minnesota has been one of very few. He is within the salary cap, but the way it is counted he is spending more money than the salary cap because we average the dollars. The salary cap is $64.25 million or whatever this year, and Craig is spending more than that because of Suter and Parise.”

Lawton believes that, because of the great talent Leipold has made possible for Fletcher to attract, the Wild will make the playoffs and do well.

“I think they’ll definitely make the playoffs, that’s step one,” Lawton said. “The way that they have spent, the expectation is they win at least one round, if not two. That’s not going to be easy in the tough Western Conference.”

Lawton works for Rogers in Toronto and does analyst work 12-15 days per month, doing all kinds of different games and specials. Rogers and Bell Media each own 37.5 percent of the Toronto Maple Leafs, along with Larry Tanenbaum and other minority owners.

One of these days, an NHL team looking for somebody who knows talent will give Lawton another opportunity to be a GM. Lawton was named general manager of the Lightning in 2008 when they were dead last with a 31-42-9 record and he helped lay the groundwork for an improved team before he was dismissed in April 2010.

Lawton was asked if he would like to be a GM again.

“I’d like to get back to work for a club at some point,” he said. “I’m very much enjoying working for Rogers and I’m very thankful to them for the opportunity, but at some point I see myself going back and working for an organization.”

Jottings

• If, as expected, Rick Adelman doesn’t return as Timberwolves head coach and Flip Saunders, now the team’s president, decides not to coach, rest assured Fred Hoiberg, who is rapidly gaining a reputation as one of the great college basketball coaches in the country at Iowa State, will be the No. 1 candidate. But he’s a longtime legend in Ames, and it would take a lot of persuasion to get him to move. Hoiberg’s victories this season over Kansas in the Big 12 tournament and North Carolina in the NCAA tournament on Sunday are ones not many coaches can brag about.

• Gophers football coach Jerry Kill on his recent trip to Washington, D.C., where he spoke at the eighth annual National Walk for Epilepsy: “It went great. It was a great experience being in Washington, D.C., and looking over at the White House and being able to speak in front of thousands of people that have epilepsy and are fighting for the cause. Got an opportunity to meet some very influential people and it was good. It was an outstanding day.”

• Vikings General Manager Rick Spielman was asked what he saw in Giants free-agent defensive tackle Linval Joseph that showed he fits in new coach Mike Zimmer’s defense. “Coach Zimmer is very big on having a big ‘two-type’ nose tackle and he has had a lot of success with that. Linval Joseph is a big man, but one thing I don’t think he gets enough credit for. People say, ‘Well, he is a great run-stopper,’ [but] he’s very athletic for his size. In fact, we had him here in our top 30 when he was coming out in the [2010 NFL] draft. We feel not only is he going to help us stop the run, but also he has enough power and enough athletic ability and enough quickness to get up the field and get some push as a pass rusher.”

• Through 35 games this season, the Gophers are 22-13 after defeating the St. Mary’s Gaels 63-55 in the second round of the NIT at Williams Arena on Sunday. That gives them one more victory so far than last year’s squad under Tubby Smith,which went 21-13 after losing to Florida in the third round of the NCAA tournament. … For the second year in a row, junior guard Andre Hollins is the Gophers’ leading scorer. He finished at 14.6 points per game last season and is at 13.8 this year, even though he shot only 1-for-7 from the field for five points Sunday, his lowest point total this season other than when he suffered a severe ankle sprain in the opening seconds of the Wisconsin game on Jan. 22 and left with two points.

• The Gophers will face Southern Miss (29-6) on Tuesday, and a familiar face will be playing for the Golden Eagles. Former Minnesota guard Chip Armelin is now a junior coming off the bench and averaging 4.7 points and 2.0 rebounds per contest. Armelin scored five and had two steals in Southern Miss’ 71-63 NIT victory over Missouri on Sunday.

Sid Hartman can be heard weekdays on 830-AM at 7:40, 8:40 and 9:20 a.m. and on Sundays at 9:30 a.m. shartman@startribune.com

Sid Hartman is a sports columnist. He also can be heard weekdays on WCCO AM-830 at 6:40, 7:40 and 8:40 a.m. Follow @SidHartman

Cowboys owner Jerry Jones built one of the most expensive stadiums in the world back in 2009, the $1.3 billion AT&T Stadium, so on Thursday he talked about how impressed he was with the new U.S. Bank Stadium and also about how important the stadium is for Minneapolis and for the NFL at large.